An ongoing review of politics and culture

The oblivious, self-involved awfulness of this post by Kate Ahlborn at Vanity Fair’s culture and celebrity blog is almost impressive. Alhorn, you see, is a VF staffer who, until recently, had never ever been to Brooklyn before, but decided to venture out into the wilds of Williamsburg hipsterdom in order to check out one of those freaky-deaky performance art shows all the kids in skinny jeans are always talking about. What does she discover? It’s creepy! And uncomfortable! And oh-so-much-more dangerous than her beloved Upper East Side. This “edgy” art stuff — rough looking buildings at the Bedford L train stop (shudder), artists who touch your face — sure isn’t for everyone! It’s a miracle she was able to make a safe return at all.

As Josh Stein says, “the entire tone of the piece … boils down to, ‘I went to an art performance. It made me uncomfortable. It was weird. I didn’t like it.’ People like this should not write things down and certainly not anywhere where anyone must read it.” Aren’t writers supposed to be interested in the world around them, curious about and open to new experiences, and perhaps even knowledgeable about their subjects? Ahlborn, the proudly sheltered Upper East Sider, seems pretty clearly to be none of the above. What’s even more shocking is just how poorly written it is. The whole thing reads like a wrote-it-the-night-before personal essay from a freshman comp. class. Vanity Fair regularly publishes pieces that I don’t agree with, pieces that are snooty, pieces that prize attitude and style over substance*, but I can’t remember the last time I’ve read something in their pages that was this shoddy, this vapid, this badly conceived.

*I should make clear that I think the magazine also publishes quite a bit of simply fantastic reporting and commentary.

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I don’t think I’d fault the content if it was well-written. Certainly, being uncomfortable and out of one’s element is part of the human condition, and a fit subject for essay. However, I think “well-written” for such content would have to be highly self-effacing and satirical.

As luck would have it, I happened to spend all weekend in Brooklyn. Granted, in the more upper-middle class areas (Park Slope, that basic ‘hood). I dig it. I actually like it more than Manhattan. Though the abundance of skinny jeans is slightly jarring.

I like that she talks about the looks she gets for wearing tory burch flats and j crew clothes or whatever, like EVERYONE in Brooklyn is walking around in flannels and leather leggings and aluminum foil dresses or something. there are plenty, plenty of people walking around even Williamsburg dressed perfectly “normally;” I guarantee no one’s giving her looks for daring to wear non-skinny jeans and ballet flats.

A few years ago I was invited to do a reading at Galapagos in the deepest heart of Williamsburg. The reading was well received, but I also realized I was going to have get rid of my Volvo wagon if I wanted to maintain my suburban cred.

I don’t get what all the fuss is about the Williamsburg scene. It sounds to me as if New York City is finally catching up to things that have been modish in every college town in America for a quarter of a century or more. In Athens, GA where I used to live, beards had gone in and out of style five times before cool kids in Brooklyn ever grew them for the first time. Maybe I’m just getting older and the writers I read are getting younger relative to me.

Years ago I lived a block from the First Ave L stop. Sat. night you’d see all sorts of Manhattanites on the platform, waiting for an East-bound train, geared up for their Billyburg expedition — skinny jeans, mutton chops, gasoline station jackets, STP Ts (it’s the racer’s edge!)

Steve: People do, indeed, still attend performance art shows. Why? Perhaps because, like me, they spent time studying it in college and want to feel like they got something out of all those years of contemplating Maria Abramovic’s nude body (or whatever).

Somewhere back around 1995 my friend who lives in Green Point told me he could get a slot for a short surf film of mine at the upcoming installment of the monthly Williamsburg Film and Slide Club. So my wife and I (hmm wait. Wear we married then?)

Anyway, the woman who is now my wife and I went over to his neighborhood, had a Thai dinner, and then trudged a mile or so to the Williamsburg Film and Slide Club venue, which was a mechanics shop, complete with a huge roll-up door that had been converted to a theater, complete with stylish looking sconces.

“Cool!’ I thought, “This is going to be fun!” I handed a VHS copy of my 10 minute surf flick to the projectionist and we took our seats.

The next 2 hours were (mostly) excruciating. All sorts of strange shit went up on the screen, accompanied by a drums, baritone sax and oboe trio that play improvised accompaniment. The trio could play, but because the visuals were so incoherent, all that they could manage were tentative bleeps and bloops; the “films” never went anywhere, or even went no where with any sort of understandable progression, so the band could never find a groove. It was like being at the premiere of a new opera at the New York State theater at Lincoln Center. We would have left, but back then projection TV stuff was expensive and I really want to see my surfers 10 feet high.

I do remember one film that worked. It was called “Nazis in New York” and it was an 2 minute, edited in the camera B&W of people hailing cabs. Also there was some found footage stuff of a bear doing something funny.

Anyway, after two hours my surf film finally went on. Nothing special. Just a clean mid-Winter swell at Turtle Cove peeling hollow against an offshore wind, and some of the local guys, head to toe in neoprene, getting some nice ride. Clean edits and a surf music sound track.

The audience (what was left of it) watched without making a sound. Apparently they didn’t know they were supposed to be impressed when someone got a three second cover-up.

Then it was over. Then there was a beat. Then a smattering of applause. Then we went home.

Are we sure she’s not pulling our leg here? Never been to Brooklyn from Manhattan? Nearly suffering “death by skateboard”? J. Crew? The post was about performance art. Maybe she was trying to get in on the act, so to speak.

This is part is utterly plausible. Discounting trips to my Brooklyn in-laws, I’ve been to Brooklyn twice (see above), Queens twice, The Bronx once, and Staten Island once. In all my years of living in New York, I’ve been to California more than I’ve been to the outer boroughs.